Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Grey Knights, Psycannons, Halberds, and the Sanguinary Guard

As the Soup Du Jour of the 40k universe, Grey Knights are getting a lot of attention and at the FLGS a lot more play.  Many people have written about them lately.  Kirby from 3++ is the new black has written some interesting articles about Grey Knights here, here, and here.  That said, the army poses quite a few problems for my Sanguinary Guard army.  You can see the latest iteration of my Sanguinary Guard army in this article.



Here are the advantages my army has over Grey Knights:

1) Mobility- jump packs and deepstriking mean that I have options for closing with units quickly.  Combined with the fact that Mephiston is on the ground and close enough in many cases to nullify some of the nastier movement affecting psychic powers like sanctuary and warp quake, I should stand a good chance of closing quickly, especially in terrain heavy setups.

2) Massed power weapons- Almost every unit is a nasty threat in combat with the ability to mass power weapon attacks on opponents. 

3) Pyschic defense- Mephiston provides a psychic hood on the ground starting turn 1 and is +1LD over most of the units in the GK army, so should be able to shut down quite a bit of psychic ability.

4) Furious Charge/FNP- Taking priests means that I have units that, combined with jump packs, will more often than not get off the charge and then strike at S5/I5. Unfortunately, the FNP won't help in combat against GK, but it has made a huge difference in soaking shooting wounds.  2+/4+ saves are nasty.

Disadvantages my army has against Grey Knights are:

1) Low model count- Grey Knights have a low model count, but I have just as low a model count.  Every model lost counts. 

2) Next to no invul saves- I currently have 1 invul save in the entire army.  Though I get quite a bit of FNP, I don't have any invul saves that I can use to negate those power weapon attacks in combat.

3) Halberds!- Even with furious charge, I am not going to be striking ahead of squads armed with halberds except with Mephiston.  That means, that combo charges are hugely important, but I have a low model count which means they will be harder to effectively pull off.

4) Range- With the exception of my Devestator squads, my entire army has a shooting range of 12" or less.  This hurts, as GK have a full 12" advantage on me and if a GK player's rolls heat up, I could be dealing with a lot of rending psycannon shots. 

Those are the glaring weaknesses and strengths that I see. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly how to counter them with my army as it is now.  My thoughts are:

1) Swap a Sanguinary Guard squad for a Vanguard Squad- This will give me a unit that can assault upon deepstriking, can take storm shields for invul saves, and can tie up units fairly well. 

2) Add more ranged attack- I am currently using 2 landspeeders in the army.  If you have read my articles, you know I don't like them, but they are useful.  I could drop these for another devestator squad. 

Aside from that, I feel that my only options are to water down my theme by taking more assault squads and less Sanguinary Guard or man up and get some better tactics. 

Understand that I am in no way complaining about Grey Knights.  I just understand that with my Sanguinary Guard army, I have an uphill battle against them most of the time. 

So, I am opening up the floor.  What should I do?  Does anyone have a suggestion for how to handle the GK lists that are a dime a dozen currently?

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...